This year, just like in 2014, has been a banner year for the weirdest and wildest art news stories around the globe. So hold onto your hats, because it’s about to be a wild ride through some of the more bizarre occurrences of the past 12 months.
1. Performance artist Stelarc grew a human ear and had it attached to his own arm. The final step of this bizarre experiment will be to eventually insert a wireless microphone under his skin, which will allow interested parties to eavesdrop on his conversations.
2. It’s been a big year for the burgeoning medium of ear art, apparently: artist Diemut Strebe used genetic samples from the van Gogh family to grow a replica of the artist’s famously severed ear.
3. A lifelike sculpture by artist duo Sun Yuan and Peng Yu first displayed at Saatchi Gallery in 2008 became a viral Internet hoax after several questionable news outlets claimed it was a real-life “fallen angel.”
4. Artist Tino Sehgal and media maven Tina Brown took the stage art Art Basel for what turned out to be a surprisingly hilarious conversation. “I’m still a dancer,” Sehgal said during the event. “But I’m not an economist.”
Thanks for clearing that up, Tino.
Tino Sehgal and Tina Brown.
Photo: David Biedert Photography.
5. An art and design collective made a black-and-white striped bouncy castle with Nicolas Cage’s face on it (Cage in a cage, get it?), and it’s kind of terrifying.
6. A street artist operating under the alias “Wanksy” (it was really only a matter of time) travels England painting giant penises on top of potholes. Just call it public service with private parts.
7. Performance artist Poppy Jackson baffled Londoners by straddling the roof of a house naked for four hours. “Isn’t that a bit chilly?” remarked the Daily Mail, in what has to be one of their more astute headlines of the year.
8. An Icelandic artist student elected to spend a week inside a large glass box—you guessed it—sans clothes, as part of the final examination for a studio art course. Minus the nudity, it really doesn’t sound all that different from a typical college exam week to us.
9. A mortician who was present during the embalming of Marilyn Monroe’s body fished her breast enhancers and several locks of her hair out of the garbage, kept them for five decades, and then auctioned them off on a website called marilynfalsies.com. “Not in the least creepy,” he told artnet News. We beg to differ.
10. David Shrigley designed a soccer mascot described by one reporter as “Lisa Simpson if she had been tortured and then melted. And then addicted to crystal meth.” Needless to say, sports fans didn’t love it.
Photo: Jeff Holmes/PA.
11. British painter Lloyd Canning, who attracted attention from tabloids after claiming to have been abducted by aliens, finally admitted to having made the whole thing up. “Don’t you just love the media, exposure is what I wanted, exposure is what I got lol lol lol lol lol lol lol I love you all,” the artist wrote on Facebook.
12. This Halloween, one Ohio artist created the “Trumpkin,” a giant, hilariously-named pumpkin painted to look like Donald Trump. There’s also a Kim Jung Un pumpkin, but that’s way less catchy.
13. Speaking of Trump, yet another artist created a portrait of the presidential candidate that’s also a butt plug.
14. After Drake created replicas of James Turrell‘s signature boxy, glowing sculptures for his hit video Hotline Bling and went on the record saying he “fuck[s] with Turrell,” the septuagenarian artist released the following statement: “While I am truly flattered to learn that Drake fucks with me, I nevertheless wish to make clear that neither I nor any of my woes was involved in any way in the making of the Hotline Bling video.” Worlds truly do collide.
15. Japan has a virgin problem, and art is the answer!